Butternut Coconut Pork Curry

Another Sunday just passed – this one happened to be my only day off for the week, and was accompanied by decent weather (as in not raining all day). Since it was my only opportunity in the past six days (and likely the next six days as well) to get anything done outside, I knew that I needed to take advantage of every minute I could. At the same time, we had Karen’s parents coming over for dinner – so I needed to put something together that I could get started in the morning and forget about until right before it was time to eat. In other words, it was a perfect day for the slow cooker!

Gather Up:

4lb pork shoulder or picnic roast, bone in – thawed or frozen works just fine (mine happens to be all of about 5 minutes out of the freezer in this picture)

Place the roast in the center of a large slow cooker crock. Add the bay leaves around the bottom, and the cinnamon stick. Next, place the squash around the roast. Combine one can of the coconut milk with the turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, garam masala, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Whisk to fully combine, then pour over the roast.

Melt the coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat. Toss in the minced jalapeño and cook for a minute or so. Add the onion, and continue to sauté until the onion is fragrant and translucent, but not starting to brown yet. Arrange the onion and jalapeño on top of the roast. Cover the slow cooker, and turn it on for 6 hours on high or 10 hours on low (if you started with a frozen roast). Adjust time appropriately if you are starting with a thawed piece of meat. Go do something else…

About 20 minutes before you are ready to eat, carefully remove the roast from the pot (leave the cooker on “warm” setting if you have it, or alternate between leaving it on “low” for about 10 minutes, and turning it off for about 10 minutes). Carve the roast and cube it into pieces about 3/4″ in size or so. Transfer all of the pieces back to the crock, and stir everything together. Now is also the time to steam the head of cauliflower and rice it.

Just before serving, stir in the remaining half can of coconut milk and the cashews. You can also fish out the bay leaves and cinnamon stick at this time. Add a couple of dashes of lemon juice to taste. Serve in a shallow bowl over a bed of the riced cauliflower. We also had a garden salad of greens from our CSA on the side. Enjoy!